SDK Tools release notes

Android SDK Tools is a component for the Android SDK. It includes the complete set of development
and debugging tools for Android. It is included with Android Studio.

Revisions

The sections below provide notes about successive releases of the SDK Tools,
as denoted by revision number. To ensure you have the latest version, check SDK Manager for updates.

SDK Tools, Revision 26.1.1 (September 2017)

Changes:

A command-line version of the Apk Analyzer has been added in
tools/bin/apkanalyzer. It offers the same features as the Apk Analyzer in
Android Studio and can be integrated into build/CI servers and scripts for tracking size
regressions, generating reports, and so on.

ProGuard rules files under tools/proguard are no longer used by the Android Plugin for
Gradle. Added a comment to explain that.

SDK Tools, Revision 26.0.2 (April 2017)

Changes:

When creating an AVD with avdmanager, it is no longer necessary to
specify --tag if the package specified by --package only
contains a single image (as is the case for all images currently distributed by Google).

SDK Tools, Revision 26.0.1 (March 2017)

Changes:

Hierarchy Viewer and Pixel Perfect tools returned to Android Device Monitor
(the command-line versions are still removed, as of revision 25.3.0)

SDK Tools, Revision 26.0.0 (March 2017)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-Tools revision 24 or later.

Changes:

tools/android now attempts to reproduce the functionality of
android in tools prior to version 25.3.0 by invoking the new tools.

All avd, target, and device commands should
work as before.

sdk commands will be translated to similar commands using
tools/bin/sdkmanager on a best-effort basis.

tools/bin/avdmanager now supports the list target command.

SDK Tools, Revision 25.3.0 (March 2017)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-Tools revision 24 or later.

Changes:

Android Emulator is removed from this package and moved to a different
SDK directory. See the new Android
Emulator Release Notes. This change is backward compatible with older
Android Studio versions.

Added simulated vertical swipes for scrolling through vertical
menus with a mouse wheel.

SDK Tools, Revision 25.1.6 (May 2016)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 23 or later.

General Notes:

To improve the security of the Android Emulator and to address a reported security
vulnerability, the Android Emulator Console now requires
authentication
before you can enter commands. Enter the auth auth_token command after
you telnet to an emulator instance. auth_token must
match the contents of the .emulator_console_auth_token file in your
home directory.

SDK Tools, Revision 25.0.0 (April 2016)

Android Emulator 2.0:

Performance improvements:

Emulator now uses CPU acceleration on x86 emulator system images by
default.

Added SMP support
to take advantage of host multi-core architecture when emulating Android
6.0 (API level 23) or higher, resulting in much better performance and
speed than the physical counterpart. Also with SMP support, you can test
apps that specifically target multi-core Android devices.

Improved data and APK push-pull protocol between the Android Debug Bridge and devices
running Android 5.0 (API level 21) or higher. See speed improvements up
to five times faster than using a physical device.

Extended UI controls and a floating toolbar provide easy access to features
previously available only through the command line, such as taking screen
captures, adjusting the battery level, rotating the screen, and managing
virtual calls.

Upload KML and GPX files to play back a set of custom location points.

Dynamically resize the emulator by dragging a corner or zoom into the
emulator window.

Install APKs or add media files to the emulator’s internal SD card by
dragging and dropping files into the emulator window.

Simulate multi-touch input. While interacting with the emulator screen,
enter multi-touch mode by holding down the Ctrl key on
Windown/Linux, or Command key on Mac OSX.

The Android Emulator works best with Android Studio 2.0. To find out more
about what's included in the newest version of the official Android IDE,
read the release
notes.

Fixed the description of Android Wear system images in the SDK Manager.

Known Issues:

When you create an Android Wear virtual device in the AVD manager, a target API Level
lower than 19 may be selected by default. Make sure you select the target API Level 19
when creating Android Wear virtual devices.

SDK Tools, Revision 22.6.2 (March 2014)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 18 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 22.6.2 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 22.6.2.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Fixed a problem where the SDK Manager threw a NullPointerException after
removing a virtual device that was created using the Android Wear
system image. (Issue 67588)

Fixed a problem with Nexus 5 Android virtual devices created from the command line
where the SD card file system was read-only.

SDK Tools, Revision 22.6.1 (March 2014)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 18 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 22.6.1 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 22.6.1.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Fixed a problem where the Android Virtual Device Manager could not create new virtual
devices. (Issue 66661)

Fixed a problem with virtual devices created using ADT 22.3 or earlier.

If you created an Android Virtual Device using ADT 22.3 or earlier, the
AVD may be listed as broken in the AVD Manager in 22.6.1. To fix
this problem, select the virtual device on the AVD Manager and click
Repair.

Fixed a problem with the command line tools when creating virtual devices.
(Issue 66740)

Fixed a problem with the command line lint script.

Known Issues:

When you create an Android virtual device using the Nexus 5 device definition,
you must enable the Use Host GPU option, otherwise the virtual device
will not start.

SDK Tools, Revision 22.6 (March 2014)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 18 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 22.6.0 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 22.6.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

The command line lint script (tools\lint.bat on
Windows platforms, tools/lint on other platforms) and the
lint target on ant builds fail with the following
error:

As a temporary workaround, rename the file
tools\lib\lombok-ast-0.2.2.jar to
tools\lib\lombok-ast.jar.
We will release an updated version of the tools with a fix for
this issue as soon as possible.

Added support for Java 7 language features like multi-catch, try-with-resources,
and the diamond operator. These features require version 19 or higher
of the Build Tools. Try-with-resources requires minSdkVersion
19; the rest of the new language features require
minSdkVersion 8 or higher.

Added new lint checks:

Security:

Look for code potentially affected by a SecureRandom
vulnerability.

Check that calls to checkPermission use the return value.

Check that production builds do not use mock location providers.

Look for manifest values that are overwritten by values from Gradle build
scripts.

Fixed a number of minor issues in the SDK and build system.

Emulator:

Fixed a problem with the emulator shutting down immediately for Android 1.5
on the Nexus One and Nexus S devices.
(Issue 64945)

Fixed a problem with port numbers longer than four digits.
(Issue 60024)

Fixed battery errors for the Nexus One and Nexus S devices.
(Issue 39959)

Fixed a problem with paths or arguments that contain
spaces on Windows platforms.
(Issue 18317)

Fixed a problem with long path values on Windows platforms.
(Issue 33336)

Fixed a problem with the -snapshot-list command line
option on 64-bit systems.
(Issue 34233)

Fixed an issue with RenderScript support. Using RenderScript support mode
now requires version 19.0.3 of the Build Tools.

SDK Tools, Revision 22.3 (October 2013)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 18 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 22.3.0 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 22.3.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Added support for Android 4.4 (API level 19).

Fixed a number of minor bugs in the SDK and build system.

SDK Tools, Revision 22.2.1 (September 2013)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 16 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 22.2.1 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 22.2.1.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Fixed problem with templates that causes the new project wizard to hang.
(Issue 60149)

Fixed crash when using the lint command line tool because of mis-matched library
dependency. (Issue 60190)

SDK Tools, Revision 22.2 (September 2013)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 16 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 22.2 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 22.2.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Updated build tools to allow use of RenderScript on older versions of Android
using new features in the
Support Library.

Fixed a problem with DDMS monitor not opening heap and network statistics views due to
a class not found exception.
(Issue 55394)

SDK Tools, Revision 22 (May 2013)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 16 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 22.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 22.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Changed the structure of the SDK by adding a new build tool SDK Component, which is
based on the existing platform-tools component. This change decouples the build tools
versions from the IDE versions, allowing updates to the tools without requiring an
IDE update.

Updated tools to allow libraries to share the same package name as the applications
that use them.

Released some of the Android tools into Maven
Central to assist third-party tool developers. The following tools are available
in the repository: manifest-merger, common/sdk_common, ddmlib,
dvlib, layoutlib_api, sdklib, and lint.

Bug fixes:

Fixed a number of minor bugs in the SDK and build system.

SDK Tools, Revision 21.1 (February 2013)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 16 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 21.1.0 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 21.1.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Improved error reporting in dx when dex merging fails in the build
system.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 21.0.1 and later. If you haven't already, update your
ADT Plugin to 21.0.1.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General Notes:

Build

Updated build to detect and handle package name conflicts between an application and
the libraries it depends on. Libraries cannot share package names unless all of them
share the same package name.
(Issue 40152,
Issue 40273)

Added a flag to disable dex merging to deal with cases where merging could generate
a broken dex file. If this happens to your project, add the following setting to your
project.properties file: dex.disable.merger=true This setting
causes the build system to revert to the older, slower dex processing that does not
pre-dex libraries.

Added new project setting to control the RenderScript compilation target separately
from an Android project. Adding the following line to a project.properties
file causes RenderScript code to be compiled for Android API Level 17, while the
containing application can target a different (lower) API level:

renderscript.target = 17

Previously, the RenderScript compilation target was tied to the
android:minSdkVersion setting in the manifest.
(Issue 40487)

Fixed a bug in the lint check for unprotected broadcast receivers to ignore
unprotected receivers for default Android actions.

Fixed build issue for projects using RenderScript.

Fixed memory leak in the emulator.

SDK Tools, Revision 20 (June 2012)

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 12 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for
use with ADT 20.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your
ADT Plugin to 20.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General notes:

Added new Device Monitor application, grouping Android debugging tools into a
single application, including ddms, traceview, hierarchyviewer and Tracer for GLES. (more info)

Added new System Trace new tool for tracing Android system activity. This tool allow you
to capture a slice of system activity, plus additional information tagged from the Settings
> Developer Options > Monitoring: Enable traces or with specific calls added to your
application code.

Build System

Added automatic merging of library project manifest files into the including
project's manifest. Enable this feature with the manifestmerger.enabled property.

Added automatic ProGuard support for the aapt -G flag. This change causes
the build system to generate a temporary ProGuard keep-rules file containing classes that
are referenced from XML files (such as custom views) and pass this to ProGuard at shrink time. This
can make the resulting APK much smaller when using just a small portion of a large library project
(such as the Android Support library), since the catch-all rules to keep all custom views from the
default ProGuard configuration file have also been removed.

Added two ProGuard configuration files for use in projects:
proguard-android-optimize.txt
which enables optimizations and proguard-android.txt which
disables them.

Fixed problem where test projects did not have access to the full classpath of tested
projects, including Library Projects and third-party jars.

Fixed deployment logic so that applications with embedded tests can now be deployed
and tested like test applications, including code coverage information.

Fixed Ant support for testing projects with libraries.

SDK Tools, Revision 19 (April 2012)

Note: This update of SDK Tools is only available through
the Android SDK Manager. Use this tool to
download and install this update.

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 9 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for
use with ADT 18.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your
ADT Plugin to 18.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

Bug fixes:

Fixed an issue that prevented some developers from running the emulator with GPU
acceleration.

SDK Tools, Revision 18 (April 2012)

Important: To download the new Android
4.0 system components from the Android SDK Manager, you must first update the
SDK tools to revision 14 or later and restart the Android SDK Manager. If you do not,
the Android 4.0 system components will not be available for download.

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 9 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for
use with ADT 18.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your
ADT Plugin to 18.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General notes:

Updated the SdkController app to encapsulate both sensor and multitouch emulation
functionality.

Bug fixes:

Fixed Ant issues where some jar libraries in the libs/ folder are not picked up
in some cases.

SDK Tools, Revision 17 (March 2012)

Important: To download the new Android
4.0 system components from the Android SDK Manager, you must first update the
SDK tools to revision 14 or later and restart the Android SDK Manager. If you do not,
the Android 4.0 system components will not be available for download.

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 9 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for
use with ADT 17.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your
ADT Plugin to 17.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have
Apache Ant 1.8 or later.

General notes:

Emulator

Added support for hardware accelerated graphics rendering. This feature requires an
API Level 15, Revision 3 or later system image.
(more info)

Added support for running Android x86 system images in virtualization mode on
Windows and Mac OS X.
(more info)

Note: Use the Android SDK Manager to download and
install x86 system images. Android x86 system images are not available for all API levels.

Added experimental support for multi-touch input by enabing the emulator to receive
touch input from a USB-tethered physical Android device.
(more info)

Added viewing of live detailed network usage of an app in DDMS. (more info)

ProGuard

Updated the bundled ProGuard tool to version 4.7. In addition to many new features,
this update fixes the Conversion to Dalvik format failed with error 1 error some users have
experienced.

Split the ProGuard configuration file has been in half, with project specific flags
kept in project and the generic Android flags distributed (and updated) with the tools
themselves.

Build

Added a feature that allows you to run some code only in debug mode. Builds now
generate a class called BuildConfig containing a DEBUG constant that is
automatically set according to your build type. You can check the (BuildConfig.DEBUG)
constant in your code to run debug-only functions.

Fixed issue when a project and its libraries include the same jar file in their libs
folder. (more
info)

Added support for custom views with custom attributes in libraries. Layouts using
custom attributes must use the namespace URI http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto instead
of the URI that includes the app package name. This URI is replaced with the app specific one at
build time.

Lint

Updated Lint to check Android application code. Lint rules which previously
performed pattern based searches in the application code (such as the unused resource check) have
been rewritten to use the more accurate Java-style parse trees.

Added support for checking library projects. This change means that rules such as
the unused resource check properly handle resources declared in a library project and referenced in
a downstream project.

Added ability to suppress Lint warnings in Java code with the new
@SuppressLint annotation, and in XML files with the new tools: namespace and
ignore attribute. (more info)

New Lint checks:

Added check for Android API calls that require a version of Android higher than
the minimum supported version. You can use the new @TargetApi annotation
to suppress warnings when the code is wrapped in a system version condition.
(more info)

Added over 20 new Lint rules, including checks for
performance,
XML layouts, manifest and file handling.

SDK Tools, Revision 16 (December 2011)

Important: To download the new Android
4.0 system components from the Android SDK Manager, you must first update the
SDK tools to revision 14 or later and restart the Android SDK Manager. If you do not,
the Android 4.0 system components will not be available for download.

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 9 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for use
with ADT 16.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your
ADT Plugin to 16.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

Important: To download the new Android
4.0 system components from the Android SDK Manager, you must first update the
SDK tools to revision 14 or later and restart the Android SDK Manager. If you do not,
the Android 4.0 system components will not be available for download.

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 9 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for use
with ADT 15.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 15.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

Important: To download the new Android
4.0 system components from the Android SDK Manager, you must first update the
SDK tools to revision 14 and restart the Android SDK Manager. If you do not,
the Android 4.0 system components will not be available for download.

Dependencies:

Android SDK Platform-tools revision 8 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for use
with ADT 14.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 14.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

General notes:

Added webcam support to Android 4.0 or later platforms to emulate rear-facing cameras when
one webcam is present, and to emulate both rear-facing and front-facing cameras when two
webcams are present. Webcam support is for Windows and Linux only.
Mac support will come in a later release.

Changed default.properties to project.properties and
build.properties to ant.properties. Any existing
projects that you build with Ant must be updated with the android update project
command.

Changed Ant build.xml file to support improvements to the
build system and added and modified Ant commands to support these changes. For a list of Ant
commands, see the
Ant Command
Reference.

Changed how library projects are built.

Improved incremental builds, so that resource compilation runs less frequently. Builds no
longer run when you edit strings or layouts (unless you add a new id) and no longer
run once for each library project.

Introduced a "PNG crunch cache" that only runs on modified PNG files, instead of
crunching all existing PNG files, all the time.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for use with
ADT 12.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 12.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for use with
ADT 12.0.0 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 12.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

General notes:

The AVD manager and emulator can now use system images
compiled for ARM v7 and x86 CPUs.

SDK Tools, Revision 11 (May 2011)

Dependencies:

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is designed for use with
ADT 10.0.1 and later. If you haven't already, we highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 10.0.1.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

General notes:

Miscellaneous emulator changes to support Android 3.1.

SDK Tools, Revision 10 (February 2011)

Dependencies:

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 10.0.0 and later. After installing SDK Tools r10, we
highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 10.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 9.0.0 and later. After installing SDK Tools r9, we
highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 9.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

Upgrading to SDK Tools r9:

If you are upgrading to SDK Tools r9 from SDK Tools r7 or earlier, the default installed location
for the adb tool has changed from <SDK>/tools/adb to
<SDK>/platform-tools/adb. This means that you should
add the new location to your PATH and modify any custom build scripts to
reference the new location. Copying the adb executable from the new
location to the old is not recommended, since subsequent updates to the SDK
Tools will delete the file.

General notes:

The default ProGuard configuration, proguard.cfg, now ignores the following classes:

Early look at the new snapshot feature: To improve startup time for the emulator, you can
enable snapshots for the system state. The emulator will then restore to the state when it last
closed almost instantly. Note: The snapshot feature is still under active
development and might not always perform as expected.

Fixed the Windows launch scripts hierarchyviewer and ddms to support
the new location of adb.

Known issues with emulator performance: Because the Android emulator must simulate the ARM
instruction set architecture on your computer, emulator performance is slow. We're working hard to
resolve the performance issues and it will improve in future releases.

SDK Tools, Revision 8 (December 2010)

Dependencies:

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 8.0.0 and later. After installing SDK Tools r8, we
highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 8.0.0.

If you are developing outside Eclipse, you must have Apache
Ant 1.8 or later.

Also note that SDK Tools r8 requires a new SDK component called
Platform-tools. The new Platform-tools component lets all SDK platforms
(Android 2.1, Android 2.2, and so on) use the same (latest) version of build
tools such as adb, aapt, aidl, and
dx. To download the Platform-tools component, use the
Android SDK Manager.

Upgrading from SDK Tools r7:

If you are upgrading to SDK Tools r8 from an earlier version, note that the
the default installed location for the adb tool has changed from
<SDK>/tools/adb to
<SDK>/platform-tools/adb. This means that you should
add the new location to your PATH and modify any custom build scripts to
reference the new location. Copying the adb executable from the new
location to the old is not recommended, since subsequent updates to the SDK
Tools will delete the file.

General notes:

All SDK platforms now support Library Projects.

Support for a true debug build. Developers no longer need to add the
android:debuggable attribute to the
<application> tag in the manifest — the build tools add
the attribute automatically. In Eclipse/ADT, all incremental builds are assumed
to be debug builds, so the tools insert android:debuggable="true".
When exporting a signed release build, the tools do not add the attribute. In
Ant, a ant debug command automatically inserts the
android:debuggable="true" attribute, while ant release
does not. If android:debuggable="true" is manually set, then
ant release will actually do a debug build, rather than a release
build.

Automatic ProGuard support in release builds. Developers generate a ProGuard
configuration file using the android tool — the build tools
then automatically run ProGuard against the project sources during the build.
For more information, see the ProGuard
documentation.

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 0.9.8 and later. After installing SDK Tools r7, we
highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 0.9.8.

General notes:

Added support for library projects that depend on other library projects.

Adds support for aidl files in library projects.

Adds support for extension targets in Ant build to perform tasks between the
normal tasks: -pre-build, -pre-compile, and
-post-compile.

Adds support for "headless" SDK update. See android -h update sdk
for more information.

Fixes location control in DDMS to work in any locale not using '.' as a
decimal point.

SDK Tools, Revision 6 (May 2010)

Dependencies:

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 0.9.7 and later. After installing SDK Tools r6, we
highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 0.9.7.

Library projects:

The SDK Tools now support the use of library projects during
development, a capability that lets you store shared Android application
code and resources in a separate development project. You can then reference the
library project from other Android projects and, at build time, the tools
compile the shared code and resources as part of the dependent applications.
More information about this feature is available in the Creating and Managing Projects document.

If you are developing in Eclipse, ADT
provides the equivalent library project support.

SDK Tools, Revision 5 (March 2010)

Dependencies:

If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, note that this version of SDK Tools is
designed for use with ADT 0.9.6 and later. After installing SDK Tools r5, we
highly recommend updating your ADT Plugin to 0.9.6.

This version of SDK Tools is compatible with ADT 0.9.5 and later, but not
compatible with earlier versions. If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, you
must update your ADT plugin to version 0.9.5 or higher if you
install SDK Tools r4 in your SDK.

General notes:

Launcher script now forces GDK_NATIVE_WINDOW=true (linux only), to fix a
compatibility issue between GTK and SWT.

Android SDK and AVD Manager:

AVD Launch dialog now shows scale value.

Fixes potential NPE in SDK Manager on AVD launch, for older AVD with no
skin name specified.

Fixes XML validation issue in on older Java versions.

No longer forces the use of Java 1.5 on Mac OS X.

Emulator:

No longer limits the size of the system partition.

Ant build tools:

.apk packaging now properly ignores vi swap files as well as hidden files.

SDK Tools, Revision 3 (October 2009)

Dependencies:

This version of SDK Tools is compatible with ADT 0.9.4 and later, but not
compatible with earlier versions. If you are developing in Eclipse with ADT, you
must update your ADT plugin to version 0.9.4 or higher if you
install SDK Tools r3 in your SDK.

Android tool:

Adds new android create test-project and android update
test-project commands to allow for greater flexibility in the location of the
main and test projects.

DDMS:

Adds a button to dump HPROF file for running applications (app must be able
to write to the sdcard).

Button to start/stop profiling of a running application (app must be able to
write to the sdcard). Upon stop, Traceview will automatically be launched to
display the trace.

Fixed DDMS, Traceview, and the AVD Mananger/SDK Updater to run on Mac OS X
10.6.

Fixed screenshot support for devices running 32-bit framebuffer.

Android SDK and AVD Manager:

Provides a new UI that lets you set options for controlling
the emulator skin, screen size/density, and scale factor used when launching
an AVD.

Now enforces dependencies between platforms and tools components, and
between SDK add-ons and platforms.

Layoutopt, a new tool for optimizing layouts:

The SDK Tools r3 package includes layoutopt, a new command-line
tool that helps you optimize your layout hierarchies. When run against your
layout files, the tool analyzes their hierarchies and notifies you of
inefficiencies and other potential issues. The tool also provides simple
solutions for the issues it finds. For usage, see layoutopt.